


The Dancing Monkeys

by Ione



Category: Mansfield Park - Austen, Persuasion - Austen
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 02:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ione/pseuds/Ione
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by "As the Starling Said," this story attempts to look at what Henry was doing while Mary was with Maria . . .</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dancing Monkeys

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minerva McTabby](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Minerva+McTabby).



> With grateful thanks to Melissima for last-second beta help

Henry Crawford gazed at the much-creased and battered letter, the superscription written in his sister's modish, looping letters, blurred in places from an unknown storm in an unknown location, the ink already turned brown. From that he knew that the letter had been sent from the Stornaways' London house even if it hadn't been franked; their chief footman made the worst ink in the city. But the women used it by the quart.

He tossed the letter away unopened, misliking the rush of old sentiments that the sight of Mary's hand brought. The letter had been probably been two years in transit, chasing him from Everingham to London, thence to Italy, and somehow finding him here in Gibraltar. Or maybe all letters written to purposeless, roaming Englishmen fetched up here.

There were five more from Mary, and two from his bailiff, which he opened and perused, then thrust in his pocket. The last was written in an uneven, blocky fist, from _Thos. Bertram, Mansfield Park, Northampton._

Crawford was aware that nothing he would read inside the letter would improve his spirits, but the need to know was greater; as he slid his penknife under the seal, he reflected with self-mockery that this was as close as he would ever come to a penitential act.

_Dear Crawford_, the letter began. _You were good enough to write to me when I was ill, and while things did not fall out as well as everyone might have wished, I did want to thank you for that attention._

So far, so good. Henry Crawford had been playing a part when he wrote those letters inquiring after Tom Bertram's health; every word was meant to be read to Fanny Price, to exhibit his proper concern. His last letter to Tom was penned the morning he was to attend Mrs. Fraser's party; he looked away at the fire, remembering his intention to keep the letter open, providing him with a conversational gambit. He'd planned his little speech to Maria Rushworth, offering to convey any message she might wish to send to her brother, while knowing full well that it was an act of hypocrisy, but was not hypocrisy the essence of polite society? One pretends a delicacy that no one actually possesses.

Almost no one.

_  
. . . I write to you from a house nearly empty. What a difference a year or two can bring! Once I went away to the races, leaving you all here to be happy. Now I have given over such frivolities, but my reward is to find no one here save my father and mother, and my cousin Susan Price._

So where was Maria Rushworth gone? That night at the Frasers' party, she'd paid no heed to Henry's prepared speech about her brother Tom. How angry she'd been! Crawford gazed into the flames. How well he'd thought anger became her that evening, with diamonds glittering around her neck and in her hair, the shimmer of her silken gown over her high, outraged bosom. Anger had made her interesting.

He ran his eyes down the rest of Tom's letter, not finding any of the names he had hoped, and feared, to see. Tom had begun a course of study—he met with his father every morning to learn the business of managing of estates—Crawford would comprehend, having been master of Everingham ever so long . . .

In short, Tom meant to be good. But he was bored. And he wrote a boring letter.

Crawford crushed the heavy paper in his fist, ready to throw it in the fire. A clamor at the door stayed his hand. He welcomed the diversion, as a hubbub of English voices entered the common room of the dismal inn he'd perforce been driven to.

"You'll pay for that, you b-blaggur-r-rd . . . " The slurred voice belonged to a furious youth who, from the spectacle of the loose, awkward swing of his fists, was drunk, though the hour was scarcely past midday. He was the center of a group of sailors on liberty; the accepts of Wapping were louder than the thin, bitter rain hissing outside.

"Come on, sport your canvas," a man taunted, to more laughter.

A familiar voice said, "Pho, pho. Baker, let him be."

The drunken youth bawled, "Where is he! Come fight, you rascal dog, you . . ."

"Sit, Musgrove. I'll get you a glass."

"Make it gin, you cur."

"Hold him, Baker. Trevelyan. But no more sport. He's in my charge, and I must answer for anything happening to him."

Crawford knew that voice.

"Send him to the frogs," someone called from the group. "He's no better at fighting us nor they are."

Another roar of laughter met this sally.

Crawford thrust his mail into the pocket of his greatcoat, as a tall, powerfully built young man in a shabby naval lieutenant's uniform elbowed his way among the customers of the inn toward the counter. "Pardon—si, si, escoosay—hey, mate, shift aside—hi, innkeep! A tankard of ale! Make that three."

Henry Crawford stood up, his heart beating; anywhere else in the world money, good address, and fine looks gained one a place in any company. He'd proved that so often it was a given . . . except to one steadfast heart.

Yet again, he had to know. "William?" he said, and a little louder, for the drunken boy was shouting insults to the high entertainment of the rest of the naval fellows, "William Price?"

The powerful young man at the counter swung around, surprise in his weather-beaten, open countenance. Then pleasure. Then he flushed, uncertain, but after a moment's hesitation he came forward, hand out. "Mr. Crawford. Sir."

"My dear fellow." Henry shook hands, flushing with gratitude at the welcome, though well aware of the irony.

"What brings you to Gibraltar, sir?" William asked. "Stay. My head is a-mazed, and not a drop have I drunk this day. Here, let me just discharge this . . ."

The innkeeper was waiting to be paid. William dug into his pocket and pulled out coinage at which he squinted, then he slapped down a shilling. "That will surely do." He took the tankards to his table, and put one in front of the drunken youth. "Drink it slowly, Musgrove." He set the others down. "Here. This for you two, if you'll bide with him a moment. I just discovered a gentleman acquainted with my family." He lifted his voice. "The rest of you, shove off."

The watchet-jacketed sailors moved out, still laughing, leaving two young lieutenants in worn, faded coats like that William Price wore.

Price returned to Crawford, who indicated the other chair. "Please. Join me."

William took the chair, and leaned forward. "I can hardly stay a moment. I've been charged with this fellow." A jerk of his square chin over his shoulder. Strange, how so manly a feature could yet recall the more delicate line of his sister's features. "He cast up his accounts at the top of the hill. At least it's raining, or I'd be afeared he'd die of a sunstroke by the time I get him aboard." His brow furrowed as he looked around. "What are you doing here, sir, if I might ask?"

"I was on Lord Somerset's yacht. We were driven into the harbor by a party of French pirates, and landed in Gibraltar yesterday," Crawford said. "Ahead of our time. We applied at the Governor's Mansion to discover what to do, and found mail waiting, but no beds, as they were full up with government fellows. So I asked direction to an English inn, and found myself here."

William glanced over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. "You don't want to stay in English inns. They're robbers all, and the victuals are either boiled to shreds or dried to ash."

Crawford laughed softly. "So I discovered. And through some absurd etiquette, they will not let my man into the kitchen to dress my meals."

"No, what you want is one of the French-owned places. Or Spanish. Though here they do offer English ale." He indicated his young charge, who was just finishing the tankard. "Only remedy when someone's jug-bitten. Where he finds gin, the devil knows, for the captain don't let it on board."

"How old _is_ that boy?" Crawford asked, as the spot-faced midshipman began arguing incoherently with the red-haired lieutenant sitting with him.

William's brows lifted, reminding Crawford that, despite his younger age, Lieutenant Price had seen far more of the world, and a rougher world, than had Henry Crawford. "He's old in sin. Old in sin." Then William said diffidently, "I don't quite understand what happened—that is, I am conscious of how much I owe you, sir, for your—yes, I can see you do not want to be reminded, but hang it all, what I'm trying to say is, if you wish, I can take you by one ten times better, and for half the cost."

"I am your man. Lead on."

"Well, I'm under orders from the premier to bring young Musgrove back to the ship, as this was his first day of liberty, and not half a watch and he's run himself aground."

A brief fracas began at the other table, as the boy named Musgrove made a sudden start for the door, but the shorter lieutenant was ready for just that, and stuck out a scuffed but serviceably booted foot. The boy tripped over it, and was hauled up, spitting curses.

William Price rose. "I'd better go; my friends are giving up their own liberty to sit on young Jack-at-warts, and he's not even their shipmate. We lie just off the New Mole, if—no, I see you don't know your way about yet. But if you'll meet me at three, say, at the grog shop at the bottom of the hill below the Governor's Mansion, I can show you around."

***

__

My dear Henry. Why have you not answered my previous? I believe this is my fifth, but if it's true and you are gone from our shores, then this might be the first to reach you. If any of them do. How very vexing, not to know if all this effort and wit is thrown away. 

Very well, I shall pretend we are sitting at Mansfield Parsonage, and you will soon go out Riding, and I will sit to my Harp. My sister is at work turning the yard into a garden, and as for my brother-in-law, who knows? We will see him at dinner. That is Worlds enough.

But when I open my eyes, I see Flora seated at her harp. At least Lord Stornaway is not here, which is a large Mercy. Why is it that the ugliest Men are the most exigeant? You are neither ugly nor exigeant, so you must not be the person to ask. There! A compliment! Does that not require you to write me in return?

I do not know what is more irritating to the nerves, their pretence at grief that I lost a possible husband—or their relief that I am not thrown away in some country parsonage . . .

There was only one remaining letter from Mary. Henry had scanned down the previous ones, finding what he had expected to find, a long litany of questions he would not answer, and _bon mots _that scarcely disguised Mary's ire at being left so suddenly, and without any communication.

Henry wanted to throw the letters into the fire, but there was none in this super-heated space. And he knew that such an action would not render them unwritten, the words unsaid—his actions undone._ What was Fanny Price about, with her missish behavior? Was there a Madame d'Arblay about to be impressed, and to make of her a tiresome example of a saintly virgin for the edification of future young flirts?_

That was why he could not answer Mary: she was angry at the wrong person. He folded the letters—only one more to read, it could wait—and sat back in his uncomfortable chair made of a half-barrel, before a table cut from another barrel. Bottles hung overhead in netting, either for sale or decoration; the drink served was vile, tasting of lead, but Crawford was content to be out of the sun, which had come out by then, striking shards of blinding light off the steaming puddles. The air of the city pressed down in a miasmic combination, though apparently unnoticed by the swarms of red-coated soldiers and the sailors and officers in varying shades of blue as they drank, swore, roared and walked about, hallooing at one another and chivvying the local women as soon as they spotted one.

The large young lieutenant ducked through the low door, tucking his chapeau-bras under his arm. Price greeted Henry in a cheery masthead-in-a-thunderstorm boom. "Here I find you, Mr. Crawford. I trust I did not keep you long?"

The admiral, in spite of his liberality about the rules of matrimony, had considered unpunctuality an unforgivable sin. The church towers began ringing three before Crawford could answer.

William just smiled, waiting for the wild clamor to echo down the narrow streets and fade away to sea, then he said, "I've been told there's scarcely a bed to be had, for the troop ships are come in. They say the lobsters are gathering to chase Boney out of Spain with Wellesley at their head."

Henry Crawford knew that much, though little more; Lord Somerset had, under the guise of his yachting party, been the bearer of papers between Government officials.

"So if it's just you, my captain has issued an invitation. We're standing off toward Minorca on the turn of the tide, if you'd like to see a little more of the Med. We've a couple of other gentlemen caught similarly."

"What about my man?"

"Oh, we'll find a corner for him. The captain don't mind gentlemen, see, or their servants. He makes it a rule never to take ladies on board."

"Ah. Thank you. I find myself at—in short, I am glad to accept. Shall I meet you, or—" Henry paused, unsure how to proceed.

William gave a deep chuckle. "Bless you, I'm to come along and see to your dunnage. I'll make certain these Spanish rascals don't rob you blind. My brother Sam will meet us at the Mole in an hour."

An hour and a half later Crawford sat in the sternsheets of a gig as a another young Price, sturdier even than William, stepped the single mast and sent them bumping over the choppy waters on a rising wind toward a handsome frigate of older build. William had indeed taken charge; Crawford knew his intent was kindness—William still regarded him in the light of a benefactor for making it possible to gain his promotion—but the unconscious ease with which he'd hoisted Crawford's trunk to his shoulder, his assurance in navigating the bewildering streets, rendered Crawford feeling . . . unsettled. As useful as the expensive, dashing curly-brimmed beaver sitting on his head, which had proved inadequate against either rain or Mediterranean sun.

"She's the _Laconia_," William said, as the boat threaded between two great ships-of-the-line. Crawford looked up those towering tumblehomes, the open gun ports affording a glimpse into the life of the many decks. But the Price brothers heeded them not: their attention was on a graceful frigate floating at anchor beyond. "Thirty-two guns. She's not at her best. We had a brush with those gunboats that I think your party might have seen."

"Fourteen shot between water and deck, sir," young Sam Price put in, his ready, fearless smile a twin to his brother's.

Men crawled up in the rigging, and hung over the hull hammering and painting; great booms lifted spars this way and that on the frigate.

The sailors at the oars remained silent as the Price brothers talked about how stout their ship was during this storm or that "dust-up," pride clear in their voices.

When they reached the frigate, Crawford began to regret the impulse to accept Price's invitation. The boat seemed destined to smash against the outward curving hull, and his servant, Bryce, had gone from pale to green. An exchange of utterly incomprehensible shouts between deck and boat soon procured a rope affair extended down from a yard arm; William said, "Bide here, sir, and we'll boom you up. Watch your hat, and keep your hands in—your man would never get the pitch out of those gloves, not ever so."

Crawford found himself lifted aboard by a pair of grizzled man-of-war's men—"There ye be, sir, that's the dandy! Now step aft, if you please, sir" —followed by his servant and his trunk.

The deck was crowded with hen coops, sheep wandering about, goats, and a cow; what seemed to be several hundred men moved about, many hallooing at the tops of their voices as they clambered up and down, or hauled ropes, or carried things about.

William Price led Crawford aft along the gangway, every so often stopping to let a work party carry a spar this way or an enormous worm of folded sailcloth that way.

They stepped onto the quarterdeck, and when Price saluted, Crawford lifted his hat. Price presented him to the captain, who (Crawford was relieved to see) looked very much the gentleman. The captain was obviously extremely busy, so Crawford kept his answers as short as politeness permitted, and then a small man with a round, pleasant face stepped forward.

"And here is Mr. Benwick, sir, our first lieutenant."

"Welcome, Mr. Crawford," this Benwick said. "We've settled it that you shall have my quarters, and I will swing a hammock in the cabin, as Captain Wentworth and I have shared digs on many a ship since we were middies aboard the old _Reso_."

Crawford scarcely had time to thank him before Benwick excused himself and bounded forward, shouting at someone high in the complication of ropes and sails overhead.

William led Crawford to a hatch with a ladder leading down into an even narrower, darker passage that smelled of mildewed wood, and the exhalations of hundreds of men. Price stopped by a canvas door. "Here you go, sir. Just get settled in—the mail packet was by while we were on shore, and so things are all ahoo, as you can see. But we'll be dining with the captain late, on account of everything, which will be at double-dog." Seeing Crawford's confusion, he added, "I'll send a squeaker to warn you. If you will pardon me?"

He was gone, leaving Crawford to look around the minute space allotted to the second in command aboard a frigate. His experience on the yacht had not prepared him for any of this: the time had been standard count by clock, the cabins commodious. The servants many.

The quarters belonging to the first lieutenant would not have suited a coal-heaver, Crawford thought as he stood in the narrow access, wondering where Bryce could possibly fit his trunk. But it was scrupulously clean, and as he eyed the space more closely by the light of the swinging lamp, had to admit that it was cunningly fit together—here a shaving bowl could be set, then the same space turned to use for other purposes. The lieutenant slept in a hammock; just above it, in the slanting bulkhead, someone had fastened a kind of book shelf, which kept two small rows of tight-packed books from falling out.

There was nowhere to sit, so perforce he must stretch out in the hammock, which was difficult to climb into. But once he managed, the comfort was immediately apparent, if one overlooked the constant motion.

What else to do? He had little taste for shoving his way back into the madness of the ship readying itself for sail, or the busy wardroom full of off-duty men eagerly reading mail.

Mail. Crawford pulled from his pocket the last letter from his sister, broke the seal, and held it to the lamp, which seemed inclined to swing in a different direction than the hammock. _ Henry, I believe this will be my Last until I hear from you. Do I hear Relief, or Dismay? Let me inform you that I have seen her—Maria Rushworth that was; the Bill of Divorcement is already in Parliament. She came to me here at Lady Stornaway's, but is gone away again, into Shropshire. She is to live with her aunt Norris: if that is not deemed Punishment enough, what is? _

I say nothing of the Price she has paid for her—other than to remind you that more than two have paid it. But grief, the poets claim, can make unexpected bedfellows. Short of anyone else choosing to visit her in her Seclusion, I believe I will venture there anon. I have no fears of the Countryside. I have learnt what it can do.

Your loving sister, Mary.

"Sir?" A squeak-voiced boy scratched at the bulkhead outside the canvas curtain. "Sir, I'm to tell you that dinner with the captain is in forty-five minutes, and your man will be here with hot water anon."

Crawford fought his way out of the hammock, cursing under his breath. His head seemed to swing in the opposite direction of the ship; he poked his nose out, about to ask the boy if morning or evening dress was expected, but there was no boy.

However, Bryce appeared moments later, with evening dress laid over his arm. Crawford was relieved to discover that his trunk was "struck" down in the hold, for there was little room to turn around with two in this tiny space. He was ready within the allotted time, and joined the men crowded in the passage just outside the cabin.

When the ship's bell rang, an aproned sailor emerged, earrings swinging against his raw-scraped jaw, his long, greased tail of hair marking him as a man-of-war's man his entire life. As Crawford followed Benwick in, he noticed that the serving sailor stumped on a wooden peg.

The guests crowded in around the table, and sailors wearing their normal togs but white gloves did the serving, surprisingly deft. Crawford was placed between Sam Price, who as a lowly midshipman was quite silent, and Lt. Benwick; across the table William Price sat between the two other guests, a merchant from London who was known to the ship's surgeon, at the end of the table, and an older, saturnine man introduced as Sir Charles Peasekin.

As always, Crawford waited for the principal man at table—in a naval ship that would be the captain, elsewhere the man of highest rank—to establish the tone. Lord Somerset and his companions had moved in tonnish circles, and the favorite topic had been_ on-dits, _the more salacious the better. This captain did not talk bawdy, nor did he respond except with a single polite laugh when Sir Charles ventured a warm sally about the _Laconia_ being the conduit to a grateful Persephone. Wentworth turned the subject to the success of a cruise off the Greek Isles, and said congenially, "Glass of wine with you, sir?"

Sir Charles lifted his glass—the claret went round the table—the talk turned to _Laconia's_ successes during the past year—wind—fog—past errors in fog—the fog of rumor—possible war with the new American republic, but no one professed to believe it.

"What do they have, two capital ships? Three? Be a mighty short war, even for the Boston beans," the merchant declared to much laughter.

"With everyone else at war, they needs must follow the fashion," Sir Charles said, and was saluted with another toast. "But they will be hard put to find the successes of present company." And that inspired yet a further hoist of glasses. "Come, Captain Wentworth, let us have the story of your battle with the French frigate who'd been marauding 'gainst our Indiamen."

Crawford was aware of mental turmoil. If the naval men had bragged, he could have despised them. But they only told stories on themselves, mirthful at near misses. Their careless bravery, like William Price's careless strength, brought back with full force the sense of personal futility that he'd sustained when he first met William, then a scrubby midshipman longing for his step.

During those days at Mansfield he had mounted William on one of his hunters, to genuine gratitude, but that pleasure had dimmed to inconsequence when, night after night, William enthralled the company with his stories about parts of the world Crawford could scarcely locate on a map. William Price had trod on every one of the great continents, and as a boy. But more than that, he faced danger and deprivation—all to a grand and glorious purpose in the King's service.

The _Laconia_ was fighting to stave off French incursions as the allies prepared to encircle Boney from all sides. What could Henry Crawford lay claim to in achievement? Debauching another man's wife, and losing the one woman he had ever loved. Nor were these two actions related to the same woman, so he had not even the excuse of devotion.

The general talk altered to specific, each man explaining how he'd been caught at The Rock. When attention came to him, he tried to turn off interest with the slightest reference to Lord Somerset—knowing full well what that might imply.

Sir Charles said, "Oho! Connected with government, are ye, no, no, don't answer that. I know what's o'clock." He laid his finger beside his nose in the ancient schoolboy signal for _tace,_ and everyone else exchanged intelligent glances: of course he was on a secret mission.

Crawford shrugged, despising himself for the deliberate misdirection as Benwick said with hearty honesty, "Some may cavil at the civilians and their easy life, but I don't. Boney is no respecter of persons—or rank, in spite of his jumped up princes and archdukes."

"We heard about Lord Chetwynd at the Temple, and how the damned frogs served him out," the surgeon said to Crawford. "It's one thing to be shot as a spy. We all take a similar risk whenever we go into action."

"Hear him, hear him!"

"But to be torn apart by those devils in some torture chamber, well, that's monstrous. Just monstrous." And, raising his glass, "Death and damnation to the French, bumpers up and no heeltaps!"

"Hear him, hear him!" the others shouted, as a new bottle passed from hand to hand.

Crawford drank, accepting tribute for a danger he had never faced, and a vocation he did not pursue. Even William seemed to accept the implication that Henry was covertly in the diplomatic service, if not an outright spy—he might believe it, knowing Henry's connection with his uncle high in the admiralty—and Fanny's brother seemed as little prone to social misdirection as had been his sister.

Sam Price finished his glass, but almost dropped it as the ship gave a skittish lurch. Crawford righted the glass for Sam, who could only have been fourteen or fifteen. He realized the boy was sinking under the combined weight of a substantial meal and far too many glasses of wine.

Almost at the same moment Wentworth raised his gaze briefly to the pig-tailed steward, and Sam's wineglass, when next filled, was pink with four parts water to one part wine.

The boy's eyelids were still drifting down; Crawford recalled William's stories of midshipmen beginning their days at four in the morning, but at a naval dinner no one left until the captain had offered the toast to the king.

So Crawford said, "I hear the packet arrived. Did you receive mail, Mr. Price?"

Sam's eyelids fluttered up, and he made a struggle for wakefulness. "Yes, sir," he said thickly. And, in a lower mutter, "Devilish lot of 'em."

The surgeon adjacent laughed. "Got another quire, eh, Mr. Price?"

"It's m'sisters," Samuel said, slightly slurring, and very despondent. "They _would_ scribble a lot of letters." After a moment, he added, "M'brother gets even more." And in a much lower voice, "But the captain don't nobble _him_ into writing back of a Sunday, when a fellow would as soon catch a bit of rest."

"That's females all over," the merchant said. "Gibble-gabble until a man can't think, and if it's not in the dining room, it's in the bedchamber. And if he goes away, it's waiting for him writ-out, crossed and recrossed, at the letter office, and he has to pay for the privilege of receiving it. I assure you, I have five men under me, but I go to Persia to see to my rugs as often as ever I can."

"Here's to ladies and their letters," Benwick declared, raising his glass. "Long may they live and long may their letters to their dear ones be."

Crawford observed the captain drinking, as was proper, but he neither spoke nor smiled.

***

As the next few days passed, the idea of Fanny Price's letters on board the same ship took hold of Henry Crawford. Partly there was the desire to touch something she had touched, to see how she shaped her letters, to hear her voice again in reading the words she wrote. He wanted to sniff the paper in the hope of tracing some last lingering scent that would identify her.

But short of rifling through the effects of either brother, a thing he scorned to do, there was no getting at the least intelligence. Sam—Mr. Price to sailors three times his age—was busy every time Crawford saw him. Or he was down in the midshipmen's berth which Crawford walked by just once, as he made his way around the ship. He discovered a particularly noisome space full of boys, and heard the hectoring shout of that drunken Musgrove bullying someone smaller. He paused, uncertain whether or not he should interfere, but then another, older voice shouted, "Stop your gob, Diccon Musgrove, or I'll stop it for you! Just you leave him be."

William Price was just as busy; the second lieutenant on board a frigate generally served the worst watches. But every time Crawford saw William the young man would pause for a friendly greeting—while still keeping a weather-eye for the sailors in his charge, and the sky, and the wind. Once or twice Crawford found William on the quarterdeck, and ventured into conversation, but opportunities to get near "Fanny Bertram" or "Mrs. Bertram" did not occur. Perhaps the bluff William was endeavoring to exercise delicacy.

Midway through the third night Crawford woke when one of the young midshipman ran down the companionway, shrilling, "Turn up! All hands on deck!"

"What's toward?" someone asked the boy, as Crawford poked his head out.

"Strange sail sighted, nor'nor'east." The boy paused at the ladder.

"Betwixt us and Minorca," Benwick said, appearing from somewhere, his eyes wide and glittering in the flickering light of a candle someone held. "By God I'd love another prize."

William's voice came from somewhere else as Crawford withdrew and began to pull on his clothes. "You've already enough to buy Miss Harville a pony."

"She shall have a coach-and-four, then," Benwick shouted down the ladder, and then vanished onto the weather deck.

Crawford finished dressing more slowly, recalling something someone had said about staying below if they were to see action. It was the safest place, and it was out of the way.

But that was before the bangs and thuds of noise rumbled through the ship: the carpenter and his crew coming along to dismantle the flimsy walls, freeing up the space for the guns spaced along the deck. Crawford discovered that his space was indeed capacious compared to others, who had to share space with the enormous canon.

William appeared at his shoulder. "We're clearing for action, Mr. Crawford," he said. "You might wish to go below to the orlop, or you can stay on deck, but if we come to action, things might get warmish."

Crawford's heartbeat thundered in his ears. He remembered that clearing for action was a precautionary measure. Many were the mirthful tales about unnecessary clearings for what turned out to be a sleepy fisher, or once, their own fleet, sailing the wrong way in a fog. Much jollity had accompanied the description of the two frigates treble-shotted and ready to blow one another out of the sea, as they drifted close enough to stare inside one another's gun ports.

At any rate, he hated the notion of hiding below in the stinking bowels of the ship, tumbled in with the ship's animals, and not knowing what was going forward.

"I should like to see an action," Crawford said, keeping his voice even. "If I am not in the way."

William's approval was instant. "I thought you might say that. You may join us on the weather deck; they are serving out hot grog just now. The captain likes the men to be well fed and ready."

Crawford followed William to the deck, to find a brisk wind and choppy seas. From the motions and words of the mariners, he discovered that the wind favored the coming French, but that the _Laconia_, having joined the night before with another fleet, was not alone.

"Well, gentlemen," Captain Wentworth said as he emerged from the cabin, where the carpenter's mates were freeing the stern chasers. "I will not say that this is the worst wind we've ever met with, but we've had better."

"One comfort, if you please, sir," Benwick offered. "The crapauds won't like this cross-sea any more than we do."

"Quite true." Wentworth studied sky, sea, and the slanting war ships approaching, his expression akin to Crawfords friends before a fox hunt. "With luck they'll have to close the lower gun ports on that fifty. That'll pull her teeth some, eh?"

Crawford accepted the hot drink pressed into his hand, and though his throat had gone dry, tried a sip. The sudden jolting of the deck bumped the enameled cup against his top tooth, and he lowered the cup and peered across at the foremost French ship. Teeth. Even if its lower gun ports could not be in use, it had two more rows of guns, hardly a toothless broadside.

No one seemed worried, even when a deep boom was followed by a flash of light from the foremost Frenchman. A few seconds later puckers and splashes rose from the water not far from the stern.

"We will not waste ammunition so profligately," Wentworth said, peering through his glass. "We don't have a coast conveniently to hand."

A sharp smell forced its way to Crawford's notice. He turned. The smell came from tubs of slow match smoldering beside each gun; the men stood ready, tompions gripped, gun crews with tools. Abaft the foremast a couple of powder monkeys capered about, pushing one another.

"Mr. Price commands the forward guns, if you would like to watch their work up close," Captain Wentworth said to Crawford.

Watch cannon up close? Why would anyone do that? But Henry Crawford had always fitted himself to the company he found himself in, and so he tipped his hat to the captain and moved forward, taking care to keep well back of the cannon and their crews.

He reached William, and said, "Where is your brother? Are the boys down in the cockpit?"

William's face crinkled in a smile. "Sam is in command of the larboard guns on the gun deck." He pointed at his feet.

Henry said, "I see." Boys—in command of men shooting cannon. It made as much sense as anything here did, he thought savagely, wishing he had stayed in Spain. Stayed in Italy. Stayed in England; stayed away from Mrs. Fraser's party.

"Beat to quarters," Captain Wentworth ordered from the quarterdeck, and the Marines' drummer began the steady tattoo that increased tension a thousandfold.

_Now you can marry me._ He could see Maria so clearly, lying tousled in the bed next to him, fair hair spread on the pillow. Her face flushed with triumph.

The crump and roar of the French guns jolted him to the present. Eerie whistles propelled great black blurs in arcs above and around, and once a large_ hiss; crack! _Something in the rigging overhead smashed, followed by a hoarse cry. Great splats of blood dropped on the deck, followed by a rain of splinters; William shoved Crawford to one side, and a cable as thick as a man's leg slithered to the deck with a roar almost as loud as the distant cannon.

He stared at the rope, his mind wheeling back to that day. _But you are already married!_

_Rushworth will petition for a bill of divorcement. And you can't marry Fanny Price now, she had retorted._

_Of course I can. You go home, I go home, no one is the wiser, certainly not the Count with his two and forty speeches. That is how the game is played, Mrs. Rushworth._

_But I'm not going home, until you promise to marry me. Good little Fanny would faint rather than have you now. Even if they let her, and good little Fanny always does what she's told, the little minx. Hypocrite!_

"Fire!" the captain shouted, and William echoed, "Fire!"

The distant roar was nothing to the mind-shattering noise of cannon hurling hot iron across the sea from not ten paces away. The huge hulking guns leaped back, gouting steam and smoke; the men lunged forward to service the gun and load it again, as somewhere, a boy shrieked to another boy, their voices like the harsh cry of gulls.

_You and I are the hypocrites_, he'd said. Oh, he would give anything to be back in that Richmond inn, facing her across the bed, though at the time he longed to be away from her. As always, anticipation had proved far better than the fact. _We say what's right but we make a mockery of it, which is why I will never marry you. Come, let's kiss and part friends. What is life for but to make merry while we can?_

_You proposed to Fanny Price! Was there ever any greater hypocritical act?_

_So you meant that marriage vow to Rushworth? he'd retorted._ For how long? A month? A day? An hour?__

"Fire!"

More screeching balls, and this time the ship jolted as iron hit the hull, smashed the quarter-gallery from the stern, struck in the tops again, causing more cries, and a rain of objects.

_Don't dare to fling that marriage in my face! What was I supposed to do, sit at home until I am thirty, waiting for you? Why didn't you ask me the day after my father came home from Antigua? I was waiting for you. You knew I was waiting for you!_

A ball smashed into the farthermost gun, causing it to explode; blood and flesh splintered, mercifully vanishing in a gout of smoke. Crawford shut his eyes against the smoke clearing. He could not even hear his frantic heart; he could only stand, willing himself to invisibility.

_Because marriage with you would have been just like my uncle's marriage with my aunt. I spared us both that._

_But Fanny Price! How I hate you for that! She shan't have you . . ._

" . . . and four wounded."

"Where is Musgrove?"

"Says he's wounded. I can't see anything wrong with him, but he insists he can't see out of his eyes."

" . . . then we'll have to . . ."

"Fire!"

Another roar, followed by crashing below and to the side, and above.

Anger vanished, cauterized by the terror all around Henry; he struggled to recall Fanny, but his mind refused to impose her gentle face over the stink and death and blood. Instead it flung him right back to Maria Rushworth pacing around that Richmond bedchamber like a caged bird, wringing her hands in fury as she begged and pleaded and argued with him to marry her—and all for the wrong reasons.

How could he resent her? Mary was wrong; he was not angry with Maria, not any more. Hypocrite he certainly was, especially in what was mirthfully termed polite company, but he was not self-righteous enough to blame Maria for being so like him, when that had been part of her attraction. He just did not want to live with her.

"Reload—bear a hand there, bear a . . ."

Maria was no worse than anyone else in their circle, and better than many. She had a right to happiness, as did they all, because life was so short, made shorter by this madness of men and boys using all their brains and skill to operate these sea-conquering machines in order to murder other men and boys. And for what? When the smoke cleared, the sea would still belong to itself.

"Fire!"

Another howling screech, and this time the multiple shocks of arriving French cannon balls rocked the ship so violently that Crawford was thrown forward, striking his head. Splinters of red light flashed across his vision, stupefying him; his head rang like a bell.

When the keening subsided, he made out the shape of a face bent over him. Someone was talking. He squinted, trying to bring face into focus—William Price, soot-covered—patiently barking words over and over.

" . . . take hurt? Is aught amiss with your bones? Your head?"

"No." Crawford croaked, tried to swallow, but his throat burned. "Fine."

"Look, a chance ball sent a splinter into one of my powder boys, and the other was knocked through the hatch and broke his leg. Could I trouble you to lend a hand?"

Crawford struggled to sit. The pain in his head was blinding, but the idea of moving—of having something to do so he did not have to think—came as relief. "Yes. Water?"

"Catch a drink from the scupper on your way. Just go below—with this—bring up powder. As fast as ever you can."

Crawford took the reeking, sulfurous sack, and swayed to his feet. He stumbled to the hatch, spied one of the powder boys, and followed him to the powder room below, as the ship shook twice again, forcing them against a bulkhead. Then the guns on both decks roared in a long, rippling broadside.

All the world and time narrowed to the rush of blood through his head, the roughness of powder in his hands, the slewing of the ship as he either climbed up the ladders or down the ladders, the mouths open around the firing guns, the slipping of blood on the deck.

Just once, in a curious lull, the words " . . . give chase!" carried to his ears: sound but little sense, setting up a train of connected memories and thoughts. Chase—fox chase—the sweet verdure around Mansfield—Everingham—William Price galloping after Edmund Bertram, whose hat had fallen, leaving him bare-headed, hair lifting in the wind. Edmund—Fanny—what is her expression when Edmund wakes, and sees her on the next pillow?

Powder . . . roar. _Until the world ends—_

The flash and red pain took him utterly by surprise. Then nothing.

***

" . . . take off the leg?"

"No, it looks clean. Bleeding freely. Let's section it here—hold his arms, I think he's rousing."

A closer voice, lips warm against his ear: "Come, hold tight. That's the dandy."

The red pain blossomed into white lightning, and then nothing again.

He roused when someone lifted his head and pressed a cup to his lips. "Come now, drink it up."

The cup contained the vile concoction the sailors called grog, which seemed to be rum mixed with stale, long-casked water. It was also, apparently, a wholesale medicament: he forced down some sips, then came an even more vile concoction.

"It's soup. For convalescents."

It tasted like muck made of sawdust and ship's biscuit. But he felt marginally better when at last they let him lay his aching head down again. Somewhere to the left a man moaned on every outward breath. The sound made Crawford anxious, then sad, and finally bitter.

When he woke again, a rough but efficient hand was straightening his clothing. Crawford grimaced against his own stink, which was a disgusting and unexplainable mixture of stale sweat and brandy; his flesh was one itch, except for the continual throb in his leg, echoing the smaller one in his head.

"Waking now, guv'nor?" It was the surgeon's mate, an old sailor with only one arm. "Here. Your man is come with some tea. Mr. Price, he sent it down special. The capting is a-comin' of to visit."

The tea was the most flavorful brew he had ever tasted, filling his tongue to the outsides of it, where it tingled refreshingly. Warmth spread downward through his veins. "Oh thank you, Bryce," he gasped. And after another revivifying cup, "Is there a chance of a clean shirt?"

"No, we don't want to be movin' ye about," the mate said. "Yer man here can tell Mr. Price the tea went down right well. He keeps asking after you, sir. As does Young Price, the middie."

Crawford shut his eyes, then woke again when several hands began to shift him. His leg, which had quieted to a dull red ember of pain, flared into roaring flames again, as hands moved him, then poured pungent liquid over the wound; he had a vague recollection that this had happened before, as the smell of brandy made him anxious.

The pain had quieted when Captain himself appeared, his eyes marked with exhaustion, but he gave Henry a smile. "Well, then, Mr. Crawford, how do you do?"

"Well enough," Henry said. "I take it we prevailed?"

"Mr. Price tells me you are a man of means, so the news that your share of the prize might net you two hundred pounds or so will probably not cause general celebration. But you'll have a fine story to tell at home. The French are driven off; a fifty gun man-of-war surrendered to us just before the first watch. It was a fairly long engagement as those go, with a chase in between, but our losses were relatively light: four died, and nearly thirty carry wounds from superficial to severe. You, sir, are in the latter category. You hit your head in falling, but we are assured it was only a glancing blow. You took a long splinter in the thigh, and several smaller ones lower in your limb. The surgeon was concerned about a major blood vessel, but he feels the wound is healing cleanly. He is a very experienced gentleman; he's been with me these six years, and you may repose complete trust in him."

"Thank you. He's brought me thus far . . . and has my gratitude. . . How fares the vessel?"

"We lost the foretopmast, two guns, my larboard quarter-gallery, and numerous gun ports were knocked into holes. The mizzen was wounded, and we've fished it for now. We should reach Port Mahon within three days if the wind holds."

Crawford suspected Wentworth had duties awaiting him, so he signed his thanks and closed his eyes, listening to Wentworth's quiet murmur as he made his way around the cabin to each man.

***

The wind died that night.

The air heated up until it became stultifying. Midmorning the next day, at the urgent request of the surgeon, the captain gave permission for the wounded who could be carried to be brought up to the weather deck, and set out under awnings rigged to shade them. Crawford lay in a pool of his own sweat, his leg an agony at the slightest movement.

Gradually he sank into fever; from the sounds, many around him were also feverish. His mind wandered; he heard the text of Mary's letters, only she was reading. No, she stood at the window at the admiral's, looking out at the garden, the light on her profile. 

_"Who would have thought that little dormouse Fanny Price would be playing the deepest game of all. Did she count upon marrying a future Sir Edmund?"_

"That's ridiculous," Henry murmured, and louder, because Mary did not turn from the window. "That's foolish. Fanny did not know Thomas would become ill when she turned me down."

"Here, sir. Drink. It'll do you good."

Tea washed through Henry's dry mouth, fighting the strange lassitude, and reknitting his body to the present world. Including the pain. He opened his eyes, to discover William Price sitting near his head, using a bit of sailcloth tied to a pole as a fan to create a semblance of a breeze.

With the sense of his body came a measure of awareness. "Was I talking?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Yes." William looked to one side, and then said, "About my sister."

Henry swallowed. "Is she happy?" And when William looked around again, "Is she happy, William?"

William Price turned back, his face somber. Unfamiliar that way. "Fanny would be happy anywhere, so long as she's properly loved."

"So . . . does Bertram love her?"

"I think so," William said, and then in a rush. "Though I don't think he knows her. That's why I wished . . ."

Henry made an effort and opened his eyes. William made a helpless gesture, and Henry understood it to mean that he wished that Henry had married her. He grimaced.

William said in haste, "Make no doubt, I have a great regard for Cousin Edmund. He's a capital fellow. But he was used to telling her what to think. He never asked her what she thought."

"No one did, in that house," Crawford said, too weak to be surprised at the turn this conversation was taking—one he never thought he would have. Maybe he was dreaming it. "_I _asked her. And asked her. What she was thinking. But she would never tell me."

William sighed, then said, "She wouldn't tell me neither, even when we were alone two days, before I sailed on the _Thrush_. I make no doubt she was turning things over in her mind. She was a thinker, even when we were small. I thought it a fine thing to get her away from the Bertrams' influence, so she might see clear. Maybe she always saw clear."

His implication was clear enough, and nothing new: if Crawford had for once exercised strength of mind and waited, he would have gained his dearest wish.

Leaving him with the hardest question of all: would anticipation of getting his dearest wish have been sufficient to inspire him to a lifetime of exercising strength of mind?

Another time he could be his own worst enemy, but now, it was good to just lie passively, listening to the soft plash of water against the hull. There was just enough breeze to keep the ship from rolling out its masts, but not enough to drive it.

"Would you like to hear something from her latest letter?" William offered.

"Yes." Yes, though it would pain him in the heart as much as this damned splinter had cut his limb.

With that strange, feverish clarity that poised his brain between memory and the present—as if he did not quite exist completely in either place—Henry remembered being so sure, so confident in his powers as he said to Fanny,_ It is not by equality of merit that you can be won. That is out of the question. It is he who sees and worships your merit the strongest, who loves you the most devotedly, that has the best right of a return. _

He had never believed such a woman existed—such a person existed. If he discovered through her letters the evidence that in attaining happiness she had grown complacent, he would know that she, too, was made like the rest of humanity. Not calculating, or cruel, but . . . perhaps prosy. Smug, perched comfortably on the high moral ground with her clergyman husband. Sharing psalms over breakfast, and subjecting dinner guests to improving sermons.

Yet such was the conflict of human nature—of _his_ nature—he knew that if she were not happy, it would hurt the worst of all.

"Here we go, then. '_Sir Thomas rides over every evening to discuss new plans for Mansfield Parsonage with your cousin Edmund. They scarcely agree on one plan before he thinks of a better, and like the queen in the story, he returns the next day with a new tale. We meet each as if it's the first, though we are agreed that whatever is settled on, there must always be a room for you. It gives Sir Thomas such pleasure to be planning nursery rooms, and a wine cellar, and a better library, but one day the workmen must actually begin . . .'"_

William's deep, chesty burr of a voice did not quite mask the soft fall of Fanny's voice in Henry's mind. These were _her_ words, and he could so easily see her smile, the mild expression of her eyes as she wrote them.

_"'Aunt Bertram has given me rose clippings for the new garden. Such blooms we had at Thornton Lacey last spring! It comforts me to know that Mrs. Hodgekin, wife of the curate who takes our place there, will love them as I did. . .'"_

The voice read on, sinking below the images of Fanny in the garden, stooped over the roses, Fanny walking down the avenue toward the Parsonage. Fanny sitting over her sewing, the reflection of the fire in her eyes.

Henry Crawford ceased to hear the words, as images pressed on his brain, driving him down into dreams of what had never been._ Is this death? _he wondered. He found he did not really care.

***

But when William came next, Henry was a little stronger. William brought an older letter, which he brandished, saying that he thought he might read more, having seen what pleasure the latest one gave Henry.

When William was done reading, Henry asked, "When you write to her. What do you tell her?"

William chuckled. "Not what you might be thinking. I might say we were in a scrape. She'll hear that anyway, if Sam writes to our brother Tom, bragging, you know, as boys will. I tell her the news from a distance, you might say. The glorious parts."

"Is there a glorious part?" Crawford asked, closing his eyes again. "I remembering hearing something. About that young fellow Musgrove. Something thought he was feigning injury?"

"We've yet to prove that. He's biding in quarters, as if recovering. The captain don't want to put him under arrest."

"Because if he does, what next, you shoot him?" Henry opened his eyes. "Or hang him from the yard-arm? A boy who should be in school."

"Smaller boys that he are hanged for stealing a loaf of bread. Not that I think it right. That is, it has to be called _right_ in that it's the law. But I don't like it. As it is, Dick Musgrove has three years on Sam." William shrugged.

"He's not fit for this kind of work," Henry said.

"Truth is, he's not fit for much of anything. If he was just shy, what we call blessed are the peace-makers, for we never like to say the word 'coward' outright, in cold blood, you know. If he was timid, he could be put to a clerkship in the Navy office, or the like. But he's no hand with pen or counter. A coward sober, and a bully when he's in liquor, which is all the time he can find it. If he was home, he'd be cutting capers like pretending to be a highwayman. He's no use to us, see, where we have to depend on each other. That's what duty means, each trusts the next man to do his part. Then we all come through."

"I understand what you say about duty, but I find I don't blame him, or any other man, for a natural instinct in self-preservation."

William said soberly, "We all have it. I've found out that under fire, we're all afraid. Or most."

Henry would have abandoned the subject if he had been in London. But in London such a subject never would have arisen. It was not witty, or clever, or modish. He seemed impelled, whether by pain, or fever, or some need he did not recognize, to speak. "I never believed in Hell, but if there is one, it could be no worse. Maybe Hell is really this life—war and pestilence. It seems an exercise in futility, murdering one another, when ten years ago I toured in France, and I liked the people and the place. And I can't help thinking that in any battle with them, both sides are praying to the same God for victory."

There was a hesitation, as the eternal surge rushed and slapped the hull, and men's quiet voices rose and fell, sometimes punctuated by a laugh.

"I think you're better asking Cousin Edmund about such things, that being his business, so to speak. Just as he wouldn't tell one of us how to box-haul a brig off a lee shore. But I like to think that Davey Ebbins, as good a man as ever lived, is back with his family, took by the bloody flux ten years ago. He was on the foremast crosstrees when it fell."

William shifted, sniffed the air, and said, "We're getting a breeze." He reached around and rapped the deck gently with his knuckles. "As for my letters, I tell Fanny the things she'd like to hear. You know, what I talked about, when I visited my Bertram cousins that summer. High waves in typhoons, but we survived it. Strange beasts at sea. Odd sights, like rings around the moon, and Leviathan swimming alongside us, giving us a knock against the hull in play, that shakes the ship to the royal yards. Next letter, I'll tell her about the monkey that Sam bought in Trinidad off a Portugee fellow, taught to dance on the capstan when someone blows a pennywhistle."

"Yes, she would like that. If no one is cruel to the monkey."

"Well that's the thing about Sister Fanny. She expects Sam to be good to the monkey. She wants life to be good. She _lives_ the good life."

_Ting! Ting!_

"My watch. Shall I send your man with any more tea? A biscuit?"

"I am perfectly content.Thank you."

Footsteps moved away rapidly, and Henry lay, enjoying the whisper of wind over his limbs. The embers in his leg had banked. If he didn't move at all . . .

***

As the wind picked up, life began to flow back into Henry. He woke ravenous for the first time. The ship began to come to life, so the surgeon's mate and a party of seamen carried the wounded down below again. Bryce hovered anxiously, clearly relieved when Henry asked for something to eat.

The surgeon came around to check that no wounds had broken open, after everyone was below. "We'll get your man to shift your clothes, I think," he said heartily to Crawford. "Another application of burnt brandy will keep the cool humours circulating, and the dangerous warm ones in check. You eat, and rest, and walk about as much as ever you can. I've found that the sooner a man is up and about, the sooner the humours circulate, and healing sets in."

_The sooner you have him back at labor_, Henry thought, but he kept that to himself.

"If you get feverish, you tell us and we'll blood you. But I suspect you'll do."

The surgeon began to turn away, but Henry reached to catch his wrist. "Will I walk with a limp?"

The surgeon frowned. He was haggard, unshaven, his eyes red-rimmed. He glanced at Henry's foot, still encased in the blood-crusted stocking, and shrugged. "I expect so. You might need a cane, but you'll do." The tone of voice on those last two words was very different from the previous use. Impatient, and perhaps a judgment. Henry heard the separation of rank in those words: until then they had been two men, one recently in danger of losing his life, the other working to preserve it, but now Henry had once again become a wealthy man of rank, and as such, a cane would not be the tragedy that it might for some of these other fellows, whose livelihood depended on working limbs.

Bryce approached with the shaving kit, and a can of hot water. Henry had never enjoyed an experience more than that shave and partial bathe. He had never before reveled in the feel of a clean shirt.

He felt demonstrably better; Bryce was eager to tend him, and Henry wondered if the eagerness had to do with the prospect of being cast ashore in a foreign land with a dead master and no money, but he said nothing. That was only to be expected; the pettinesses and absurdities of life were closing around him once again. But he possessed not the energy to resent them.

With Bryce's help he rose for the first time. The initial steps were painful indeed, but Henry persevered, determined to get the humours moving, or whatever would heal him fastest.

As the day turned into two, he took more short walks, and even helped a little with such homely tasks as bringing blankets to a man whose leg had been sawed off, and carrying around the water bucket for those who still could not rise to drink.

He listened to the buzz of conversation now that the patients were stronger. They talked about those of every rank, from captain to old hands. The least was said about the captain; it was as if Wentworth had sprung from the brow of Mars onto the quarterdeck. No one seemed to know anything of his family or even if he had one.

When Henry was called to place another blanket over the amputee, the empty space next to the healthy leg was shocking. The man lay in a sweat, either sleeping or staring overhead at nothing, except when his mess mates appeared. Henry found it both amusing and odd, how these huge, grizzled men with the accents of dockyard mateys spoke as if to a small child as they coaxed and pleaded and praised "Old Tom" by turns, in an effort to get him to eat.

Henry meditated on his reaction, and recognized in it that this old, uneducated sailor had value to these others. He wondered how much value he would have to anyone, if he was not possessed of rank and wealth.

Henry was not without visitors. William came when he could, but now that the ship was under way again, the officers and seamen were busy shaping the wounded ship for Minorca. Benwick came down twice, once bringing him a much-battered little booklet. "Here's a capital satire by a Yankee name of Bryant, about their Jefferson. If you want any more reading, just sing out."

Henry was reading _The Embargo_ when the constant murmur of chatter suddenly died, and he found the Captain entering.

"How are you feeling, Mr. Crawford?"

"Much recovered, thank you, Captain."

"The thanks are mine, for your generous aid in a tightish moment. We shall be reaching Minorca by tomorrow, if the wind holds. I would like to invite you to dinner tonight, in celebration of our triumph, to which you contributed no small part. If you can sit."

"I should like that very much."

***

" . . . and then we loosed our third broadside from the starboard guns, to prodigious effect, but we had yet to come about . . ."

Over dinner, the battle was refought in every detail. Only now, instead of sharp, high voices barking blasphemies and orders, the voices were low, deep, appreciative chuckles, the shared mirth of triumph and mutual compliment.

Instead of white faces, blood- or powder-splashed, and round mouths and eyes, faces were flushed with heat and good humor.

The merchant, not present at the dinner, had remained the entire time in the orlop. The company assured one another that was no reflection on the fellow, not the least fling at merchants, and he'd only done what he'd been told—but they despised him for it. Sir Charles had apparently gone into the maintop with his own pistols and ball to take the place of a Marine sharpshooter who had been wounded; he was there to regale his auditors with the history of every shot.

The words "bravery" and "courage" were thrown about freely. Henry raised his glass, smiled, laughed, saluted with the others, while knowing that much as they might cheer his bravery, his primary motivation had been relief. He had orders, he had something of purpose however little of his wit and skill was required to perform it, and his very determination to perform that labor had less to do with courage than a desperate conviction that if he did what he was told, there might be order restored in a world where all semblance of order had flown.

"Pho, pho, I only did my duty as I saw it."

That was the most common refrain. Much was said of duty, in high-flown compliment that once would have stirred Henry to reach for his pen and exercise his wit against such trumpery. But Mary—once his closest confidant—was out of reach, still angry for her loss of Edmund Bertram, and also, it seemed, on behalf of Maria Rushworth.

Before Henry sat William Price, who flushed with pride at every fulsome compliment, perhaps taking more meaning than was meant, for he himself never uttered humbug.

" . . . the bottle stands by you, Mr. Crawford."

Henry started out of his reverie. He poured out wine, then raised his glass. "Here's to duty," he said recklessly. "_Lus summum saepe summast militia._"

They all shouted, "Hear him, hear him!" but Henry saw comprehension in only Sir Charles and Captain Wentworth.

William, at his right, leaned over to whisper, "Was that a Latin tag, sir?"

"Yes. By a fellow named Terence." _Whose great works were all lost at sea._ But Henry was not going to say that.

William thanked him, and raised his glass as Benwick, whose flushed face and bright eyes hinted at one too many glasses, gave a long, and somewhat maudlin, tribute to his lady love, borrowing freely from at least three poets.

Perhaps it was his unsteady hand, or perhaps the subject, but when that was finished, Captain Wentworth raised his own glass, and in his strong nautical voice toasted the king, which served as the signal that the dinner was over.

William helped Henry to the door, and thence to the railing, where the balmy air was refreshing. Henry looked around for Bryce, then leaned against the rail._ Duty_. There was an important thought hovering at the edge of his mind about duty, and William Price, and Captain Wentworth, who did not want to hang a lubberly boy at the yard-arm for cowardice, though he had a right to by the Articles of War.

"A question, sir, if I may ask."

Henry's head ached from the wine, and the heat, and from being too long upright after days of lying in bed. His leg throbbed. But here was the captain, leaning against the rail next to him, his fine profile outlined against the Mediterranean stars. '"The law at its most rigorous is often injustice at its worst.' May I ask what prompted that?"

Wherever Wentworth had come from, he had obviously been educated as a gentleman.

"It was not a fling at the service," Crawford said. "Or at present company. The truth is, I hardly know what prompted it."

"We will not hang that young dog Musgrove. I've a friend, an old steady captain, who might do better than I with influence, and I will trade him out."

"I was thinking about him, I must admit, though I do not presume to be interfering with your ship's affairs. I was also thinking about duty. Despite all the rhetorical flourish, something young Price said to me defines it better than any Parliamentary speeches: 'That's what duty means, each trusts the next man to do his part. So we all come through.'"

Captain Wentworth gazed up at the rigging, then out to sea. "That's what it comes to, in the end. Each does his part. I won't play the hypocrite and prate of the evils of war when it has been so good to me. I am a wealthy man . . . not that it much matters. But there you go. I admit that life, as well as the law, admits of its ironies."

Henry had always matched his tone to his company, which had made him observant of the flicker of an eyelid, the slight lift to shoulder, the curl of lip that betrayed motivations and sentiments that people might keep hidden.

Most of the time such things ought to be hidden. But this captain's signals did not hint of greed, or ambition. Henry thought he detected the signs of another who had been disappointed in love. Or perhaps it was simply that his head hurt, and his leg—which might never be right again—was aching like the devil.

"One of the ironies of life," Henry said, "is that the strongest person I know is not a warrior, but a woman."

Henry waited, but the captain made no answer. Yet the man had stilled, and Henry sensed that his chance shot had struck home. He could not define how or why he should bestir himself, other than that vague sense of duty that lay outside of the narrow meaning of military order. He would gain nothing, he might even embarrass himself, for he did not at all know this Wentworth. But . . . Fanny had faith that her brother would be good to the monkey.

Henry said, "Though everyone in her life did their damndest to force her to a decision against her principles, she held firm. Though she had no power, or influence, or any of the mastery and authority we men insist is ours by right. Is that not the truest definition of strength?"

"Land ho," the lookout called overhead.


End file.
